


Getting Up

by 20thcenturyvole



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-08
Updated: 2011-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-14 13:37:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/20thcenturyvole/pseuds/20thcenturyvole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors: / Everyone yawning. Only the clocks are alert.</em> - Sassoon, "Falling Asleep". Or, Rose's first morning in the TARDIS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting Up

**Author's Note:**

> A ficlet written for Purna, who prompted me with the lines from Sassoon.

The console room is larger than it used to be, stripped out and stripped down, shored up and riveted together into one huge, echoing space. He did it in a fit of exuberant boredom, a need to make everything around him as new as this face, as new as this body. The way it is now, he can stand on the central catwalk and hear every hum and groan and clank from the bowels of the TARDIS. It makes him pay more attention to her; the old girl's getting on a bit.

For a time, it was just his ship and her odd sounds for company, but now he hears the soft, dragging shuffle of feet at least a minute before Rose appears in the doorway, and he's pleased with himself for this renovation.

"D'you not sleep?" she says, yawning. Her hair's all over the place, and she's leaning groggily against the wall. She's got panda eyes from the makeup she forgot to remove, too exhausted and bouncy to do anything but collapse in the room she found for herself.

"Nope," he says, and gives her a grin. "No sleep for me. Except when I need to, and it's usually a bad thing when I need to." He thinks of telling her about the Zero room and dendrites and regeneration, but he's not sure how much she's willing to take in at this point.

She gives him a grin, too, a bit bemused-looking. "Do you have a kitchen, by any chance, or do you not need to eat either?"

"Everyone needs to eat," he says. "Third corridor, first door. Tea's in the red jar."

He feels absurdly pleased with himself when she laughs, saying, "I bet you've got a library, too - of course you've got a library. You were all over Dickens," and he pretends to be deeply affronted, and then promises to show her it, and the orchard and the cloister.

She pushes her hair out of her eyes, already brighter and more upright. She's like a tiny sun, a spark of a human, one of the ones that burn so brightly before they go out. He's always been attracted to things that shine, and he can't remember a human more bright than her.

She turns to go, smiling to herself. He says, "Rose?"

"Yeah?"

"Make me a cuppa while you're there?"

The sound of laughter and retreating footsteps echo for a long time after she's gone.


End file.
